Muslim organisation offers to help school ban full-face veil

by NEIL SEARS

Last updated at 22:00 05 February 2007

A Muslim organisation has offered to help fund a school's legal battle to ban the full-face veil.

The school fears it could face financial ruin if it takes on a 12-year-old girl in the High Court, after her father gained legal aid to argue it is her "human right" to wear the niqab - which covers all of her face except her eyes - in classes.

Buckinghamshire County Council has refused to pay legal fees in support of the head teacher who banned the veil, because councillors fear costs could reach half a million pounds.

But bizarrely, the school has been thrown a lifeline by liberal Islamic group the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford (Meco) which has written to the head offering to contribute towards any legal costs for the school.

The chairman of the 500-strong Meco organisation, Taj Hargey, said in his letter to the school that the full-face veil was not a requirement of Islam, and that the girl's father was being unreasonable.

Dr Hargey said: "We are strongly committed to offering you our full and unequivocal support in banning face-masks at school.

"We trust that you will continue to resist any move to implement this kind of minority ethnic obsession, which has no foundation whatsoever in Islamic law."

He noted that the school already allows many Asian girls to wear the headscarf, and added that he was prepared to lead a national Muslim protest and fundraising effort against what he called "this largely Saudi-driven campaign to make the niqab a compulsory requirement for Muslim women".

Dr Hargey added: "It is high time that moderate progressive Muslims tackle extremists on their own theological grounds.

"They use a distorted theology that has nothing to do with the Koran - the niqab is a cultural phenomenon, nothing to do with Islam.

"And we are philosophically opposed to the notion of 'Muslim exceptionalism' - Muslims shouldn't be treated differently from any other citizens.

"Our support of the school is snowballing, with us getting calls from progressive Muslims not only across Britain, but also across the western world. The Muslim Congress of Canada has offered its support today."

The High Court in London is due to consider whether to grant the girl and her father a judicial review of the school's veil ban.

As well as claiming it is her human right to express her religion by wearing the veil, the girl is also arguing the ban is unfair because her three sisters were all allowed to cover their faces when at the school previously, under a different head.

The identities of the girl, her father, and even the school, are all being kept secret under an unusually strict court ruling.

But many Muslims in the Buckinghamshire town know who is involved in the legal battle - and most are bemused at the father's insistence on taking the matter to court.

The Conservative MP for Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, Paul Goodman, is calling for the county council, and the Department for Education, to fund the school's battle.

"My own view is that we don't want veils in our schools," said Mr Goodman. "Veils are a sign of separation."

The Muslim group's offer of money and support is thought to be one of around a dozen or so such approaches received by the school - but none has yet been responded to because governors are wary of the issue becoming a political football.